1881.] • 141 



I) rep ana sicula. — I have great pleasure in recording my success in breeding D. 

 sicula in the autumn of last year, after most diligent search, necessitating a fearful 

 amount of hard work. I took a few larvae during October, these turned to pupae ; 

 the first specimen (a male) emerged on May 18th ; I much regret I could not obtain 

 fertile eggs, for although two pairs wei'e in cop. for over twenty hours, yet the eggs 

 deposited proved unfertile. This season I have spent a great deal of time searching 

 for the moth, but have only been rewarded with one specimen ; I have done rather 

 better in collecting the larvae this autumn. I trust I may be successful in procuring 

 fertile eggs. — W. K. Mann, Wellington Terrace, Clifton, Bristol : October, 1881. 



Heliothis armiger, Gymnancyla canella, Sfc, in East Sussex. — On the last 

 Bank Holiday (August 1st) I was on the Camber Sand-hills near Eye, when I found 

 several pupae of Depressaria cnicella, loosely spun up in the leaves of sea-holly, 

 Wryngiwm maritimum, and also took one specimen of the perfect insect. Near the 

 town of Bye I beat Catoptria candidulana {Wimmerana, D. L.) from sea worm- 

 wood, Artemisia maritima. On a subsequent visit (September 13th) to the Camber 

 Sands I saw plenty of traces of the larvae of Gymnancyla canella on Salsola Jcali. 

 I brought away but few of the larvae, as I had little time to search for them, they 

 were evidently abundant, but some of the larvae were quite small. On September 

 24th, I took Heliothis armiger resting on a flower in the Bectory garden (at 

 Guestling), and the same afternoon my friend Mr. H. F. Collett brought me a 

 beautiful specimen of Hoporina croceago, taken within a short distance of my house. 

 — E. N. Bloomfield, G-uestling Rectory : October 11th, 1881. 



A fruitless search for the larvae, of Coleopliora apicella. — Some correspondents 

 having expressed a wish to have some larvae of this insect, which I had collected tw r o 

 years ago rather freely on some plants of Stellaria graminea, growing in the shelter 

 of furze-bushes on the common at Tunbridge Wells, I took an opportunity whilst 

 staying at Hadlow T near Tunbridge, to go over to Tunbridge Wells, hoping to lay in 

 a stock of these larvae. I returned, however, empty-handed, not having found a 

 single one. This unfortunate result was the effect of the singular meteorological 

 conditions which have prevailed this season. The severity of the winter killed half 

 the furze-bushes on the Common, the long dry time which prevailed from the middle 

 of March to near the middle of August had burnt up all the vegetation on the 

 Common, and it was not till the rainy period which set in (so disastrously for the 

 farmers then busy with harvest) on the 12th August that a revival of vegetation 

 restored some greenness to the aspect of the place, and when I visited it on the 17th 

 September the Common was more luxuriantly green than I had ever seen it. 



The Stellaria graminea was making up for lost time and was pushing up dense 

 masses of green leaves (on which I found here and there the pretty larvae of 

 Hadena pisi) , but it was only occasionally I found its star-like white flowers already 

 expanded and none had yet reached the seed-bearing stage — there was, therefore, 

 positively not an atom of food for any larvae of Coleopliora apicella, though in 1879 

 the first fortnight in September was the very period when I had met with them. 

 This irregularity in the period of flowering and fruiting of its food-plant must surely 

 be very awkward for the larvae of Coleophora apicella, especially if the parent moths 

 deposited their eggs at the usual time. — H. T. Stainton, Mountsfield, Lewisham, 

 S.E. : September 22nd, 1881. 



